In today’s blog we are going to go through why you would potentially rebrand your business, the benefits of a rebrand as well as potential pitfalls. We will also run through reasons why companies should rebrand and the public image effects. Let’s take a look at the why a rebrand:
What is Rebranding?
Rebranding is the art, science and exercise refining, overhauling of either your brand look and feel including your logo as well as your messaging and positioning. A rebrand can include parts of these elements or what we call a full rebrand, which would include revising and redeveloping all of the creative brand elements as well as updating and revising the content. A rebrand is not only updating the different elements of a brand but also applying that into all aspects that people see, your website, social media, sales materials, etc.
Benefits of Rebranding:
Here are several benefits of going through a rebranding effort, let’s take a look at a few of them:
Fresh start: One of the reasons you may consider rebranding your business is to get a fresh start from a bad situation, event or controversy and improve your business public image.
Brand integration and unity: Many times companies merge or have been acquired and need to rebrand into one unified brand.
Separation from the competition: Another big benefit of rebranding is separating yourself from the competition and making sure consumers and your target markets understand how and why you are better.
New and improved look and impression: Many times we hear that a company’s employees or executives are sick and tired of their brand or website and want a change/rebrand in order to stay competitive or modernize.
Increased brand value: Another big outcome and benefit of a company rebranding effort is to increase brand value. This is a big and very valuable outcome of a rebranding effort and can bring big benefits of going through a rebrand campaign.
When to Consider Rebranding:
Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why companies opt to go through a rebranding process:
Bland, stale and boring: If you have had your brand for awhile and you haven’t updated your brand look, feel, messaging and positioning, website and other marketing materials in a while, you wake up one day and find your brand, bland, boring, stale. Many executives wake one day and hate their logo, brand, sales presentation or website and want it updated yesterday. They want their brand refreshed or totally re-invented to stay ahead of the competitive market place, separated from the herd and unique and different.
Separation from competition: We just recently worked on a brand that there were numerous companies in their space that all looked and sounded the same. Needless to say they wanted to rebrand themselves to clear up confusion, separate themselves from the competition and stand out with a unique and powerful brand.
Own your IP: A very big reason companies go through a rebrand is to own their IP (intellectual property). We see this way too often, make sure to check trademarks, find a clean URL that is short and sweet and file to own and protect your brand.
Modernize your brand: Another important consideration to rebrand is wanting to stay fresh, current and modern. You’ll want to take a look at the competitive landscape, see what other firms are doing and make your brand revision is going to do what you want it to do, separate yourself and make your brand modern and desirable.
Separation from bad news: Companies who want to go through Rebranding business are often because of some bad news, a problem that occurred and wanting to start fresh, new and with a clean slate. This is a fairly regular thing we hear and have helped companies go through the process, and with the things of old in past, skies the limit.
Reasons to Rebrand:
Here are some of the top reasons for companies wanting to go through a rebrand for their company and brand:
Negative News, Bad Situation: As mentioned above, separating yourselves from a bad situation, bad news and wanting a fresh start are very valid and good reasons to go through a rebranding effort.
New innovation, technology or model: Another great reason to rebrand is to highlight a new innovation, technology, model or pricing. This type of rebrand typically goes hand and hand with a significant leap in technology, innovation, model whereas a rebrand/ new look and feel makes total sense and causes customers or targets to stop and take notice of the change.
Improve your connection with investors:
We see a lot of companies rebrand or modify their brand, massage or model as part of a capital raise campaign. Those efforts typically start off with the development of capital raising strategies. These strategies start off with the development of a capital raise deck or pitch deck to successfully package your message into a value proposition that engages and compels. Another key tool is to develop your Investor Outreach For Startups and connect with investors that may be interested in what you have to offer. Also, utilizing the best pitch deck software to develop and present your pitch deck.
Risks of Rebranding:
There are risks of going through a rebranding effort, let’s take a look at some potential pitfalls:
Name/Brand doesn’t connect or resonate: You go through this whole rebranding process and come up with a new brand name and it may not/does not resonate and connect with your target audience. We’ve seen this happen before, and it is disheartening to say the least.
Brand confusion: Nothing factor we see as a risk of rebranding is that the revised brand may add confusion as to who you are, the new look, potential new name. The key here is to make sure there is a roll-out plan to eliminate any potential brand confusion.
No brand recognition: Another risk is not having people, customers or targets not recognizing your brand and creating a potential huge problem. You will need to make sure you have a well thought out communication plan to make sure this doesn’t happen.
Drop in sales: One of the top concerns brands have is a potential drop in sales. This is another reason why you’ll want to make sure you have a well thought out brand roll-out and communication plan to make sure you are protecting yourself from this potential outcome.
How to Rebrand:
Let’s go over how you would go about a successful rebranding campaign:
Competitive review: We always start with a competitive review of the marketplace and potential competitors. We like to look at how you stack up competitively, how your brand, messaging, packaging and pricing stand up and differentiate and compel prospects to engage and take action with your brand.
Brand strategy: We start with a rebranding strategy or brand strategy to map out what we are trying to accomplish with these efforts. We also take a look at the tactics we will use, the items we are going to revise, redesign or rewrite and how we are going to roll this new brand out internally with your company and the marketplace.
Creative brief: This is where we develop a document spelling out how we are going to design or recraft the new and revised brand and the content that is to along with the new/revised brand.
Creative brand development: In this phase of your rebrand is where you redesign or refine your brand logo, color palette or other brand elements.
Content refinement/development: This phase of your rebranding is where you refine your brand messaging that goes into your website, social media and sales and marketing material.
Brand roll-out/implementation: The brand out/implementation is where your rebrand is rolled out into real world, online, on your website, social media and customers and prospects alike get to see the new and hopefully improved brand.
Types of rebranding:
A full rebrand: This is where you refine your brand strategy, the creative and content components of your brand as well as the execution of your brand, everything is refreshed from top to bottom.
Partial – this is where you revise specific elements of your brand, items like creative, content, other elements, but not all of your brand components. :
Rebranding ideas:
I love to see a brand evolve, grow and take it to the next level. Take Croc’s as an example, it was a flash in the pan fashion footwear brand but lost favor, sales and popularity. But the brand revised itself during the pandemic and moved to support the medical community and partnering with designers and doing collabs, both of these helped catapult and revise the funky footwear brand.
Rebranding checklist:
Brand Strategy: Make you’ve mapped out what goals and objectives you are trying to achieve and how your brand is going to help you get there.
Does the brand look good? Does your revised brand look how you want it to be? Is it cool, fresh or exciting? Are you happy with how it turned out?
Does it sound good? How does the revised content/copy read? Does it communicate your value proposition and make people take action?
Separate you from Competitors? Does your revised brand separate you from your competitors and make you stand out?
Brand Architecture: Package the new brand into brand guidelines that informs everyone on the standards for usage, both in design and content.
Brand Implementation: Develop a rollout/implementation plan to make your new and improved brand to the public.
Brand Results: Make sure you have tracking set up to track and measure the effectiveness of your new and revised brand.
Conclusion:
With the rebranding of your business, you can change the public’s perception of your brand as well as significantly the value of your brand in the process as well. Get started today to revise your brand and produce the type of outcomes you are trying to achieve.
